Keys, Key Signatures and Scales

Having studied the previous lessons, you are now understand identifying notes on a staff and you know how to discern rhythms. Before we go further it is wise to remember that at the beginning of each piece of music the player is given instructions, as it were, as to how to proceed with this music. These first instructions are in the form of clef signs (for right and left hand if playing a keyboard) and key signatures (if any).

For example, a sharp sign on the F line means that all F's in the piece will be sharp (½ tone higher) unless contra-indicated by a natural sign. A natural sign is written in front of a note just like sharps and flats and can cancel any previous instructions thus making the note its “natural” self. Another common key signature contains a flat sign on the B line. So all Bs within a piece of music will be flat or ½ tone lower in pitch. Where a natural sign is used to cancel an accidental indicated by a key signature, the natural sign is only effective for the duration of the bar or measure in which it occurs.

The reason for using a key signature is that it saves having to write the sign (or accidental) for each sharp or flat. The only drawback is that the reader must remember what the key signature dictates but in time, this becomes second nature. So depending on what the key signature contains, the song will be played in a particular “key” or pattern of notes. For example, the key of G contains an F sharp within the key signature; the key of F contains a B flat within the key signature, and so forth. Note, you will never see sharps and flats intermingled within a key signature.

Scales

A scale is simply a sequence of related notes. There are different types of scale but what makes each one unique is the pattern of intervals each one follows from the starting note, often called the tonic or root, to that same note played octaves higher or lower. Each scale has a key which it takes from the name of that tonic or root note.

Most commonly written scales are happy ones. “Happy” or major scales are a sequence of notes either ascending or descending. The opposite of happy scales would be the minor ones. You will recognize minor keys when you hear more solemn songs like “Volga Boatman”, “Time in a Bottle”, “Eleanor Rigby” or even “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho”.

The intervals between each note of the major scale can be described in terms of steps and half steps. The intervals that link together the eight degrees are STEP–STEP–HALF STEP-STEP-STEP-STEP-HALF STEP. All major scales follow this pattern. No exceptions. It is possible to create major scales on every one of the twelve different notes of an octave. For example, if the tonic is moved up to the note G, the same set of step and half-step intervals is followed to produce the scale of G major.

Key signatures for all the major scales can be recognized from the number of sharps or flats shown at the beginning of the staff. The number and position of the sharps and flats on each new scale follows a very specific mathematical pattern.